I. Field
The following description relates generally to wireless communications, and more particularly to allocating power for transmitters in single-carrier or multi-carrier wireless communication systems.
II. Background
Wireless communication systems are widely deployed to provide various types of communication; for instance, voice and/or data can be provided via such wireless communication systems. A typical wireless communication system, or network, can provide multiple users access to one or more shared resources. For instance, a system can use a variety of multiple access techniques such as Frequency Division Multiplexing (FDM), Time Division Multiplexing (TDM), Code Division Multiplexing (CDM), Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing (OFDM), and others.
Common wireless communication systems employ one or more base stations that provide a coverage area. A typical base station can transmit multiple data streams for broadcast, multicast and/or unicast services, wherein a data stream can be a stream of data that can be of independent reception interest to a wireless terminal. A wireless terminal within the coverage area of such base station can be employed to receive one, more than one, or all the data streams carried by the composite stream. Likewise, a wireless terminal can transmit data to the base station or another wireless terminal.
According to an example, a transmitter in a wireless communication system can utilize one or multiple sub-carriers for transmission. For a single transmitter with multiple sub-carriers, for instance, power can be efficiently allocated by evenly spreading power across the sub-carriers assuming that the channel is stationary (e.g., due to concavity of the Shannon capacity). However, when a second transmitter is introduced that transmits simultaneously as the first transmitter and therefore causes the transmitters to interfere with one another, the foregoing no longer holds true. For instance, when mobile devices are situated at the boundary of two cells, such devices can operate below 0 dB and thus experience significant diminution in quality of service. Moreover, when a single sub-carrier is employed by multiple interfering transmitters, similar inefficiencies and/or degraded service due to interference can commonly be experienced in connection with conventional power allocation techniques.